“All the more reason to gets things corrected quickly and then never see each other again.”

“Is that what you want?”

My answer is immediate. “Yes.”

He has the gall to look sad, as if this a rejection.

“Is this what you wanted to speak about?”

He shakes his head. The lamplight is reflected in his eyes. “No. I wanted to tell you that you don’t need to worry about me. I’m telling the truth this time.”

I try to walk away, my boots crunch through the frost-slicked underbrush, but I don’t make any progress. No matter how I move my feet, I stay stuck in the same spot.

“You know as well as I do I have no reason to believe that.”

Finn is right beside me, despite my attempts to get away. “I can’t stand the way you look at me like I’m someone you’re afraid of.”

I whip my head to face him. My hair is unbound, the tendrils tangle around my shoulders. I want to respond with fury, to tell him I’m not afraid of him. But the truth is, I am. I’m terrified of him.

It scares me the way Finn can do horrible things and smile and move on with his life as if nothing is amiss. I’m scared by the way he lies as easy as breathing. What kind of person inflicts as much pain as he has and still feels entitled to move through the world with easy manners, performing stupid magic tricks at dinner?

With his golden curls and sparkly eyes and straight teeth behind a ready smile, Finn wears the disguise of a normal person well. But the smell of blood and gunpowder lingers on him. He can’t wash himself clean, not to me.

The edges are rippling. We don’t have long.

“Does it truly not haunt you? What you did?” I ask.

“What we did,” he corrects me.

Aching for someone is a privilege, except when it’s not, except when it’s like this.

I see his face and my heart is all muscle memory, the ghost of a want I can’t make go away.

The dream space collapses on itself and I wake up, sweaty and alone.

He’s three doors down, in a bed that looks just like this one, alone as well.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rue Blanche is bathed in the firelight and crawling with men in masks.

The stone mansion looks so much bigger in the dark than it did in daylight. Torches have been lit and placed along the perimeter of the grand entrance steps, but the flicking light bathes the imposing building in long shadows, making it look as if it isn’t quite of this world. It ripples in the dark as if it’s something from Finn’s and my shared dreams.